Existentialists and Mystics

Writings on Philosophy and Literature

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Overview

Best known as the author of twenty-six novels, Iris Murdoch has also made significant contributions to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch’s journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy.Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch’s novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

Table of Contents

Existentialists and Mystics ForewordEditor’s PrefacePart One: PrologueLiterature and Philosophy: A Conversation with Bryan MageePart Two: Nostalgia for the Particular, 1951-57Thinking and LanguageNostalgia for the ParticularMetaphysics and EthicsVision and Choice in MoralityPart Three: Encountering Existentialism, 1950-59The Novelist as MetaphysicianThe Existentialist HeroSartre’s The Emotions: Outline of a TheoryDe Beauvoir’s The Ethics of AmbiguityThe Image of MindThe Existentialist Political MythHegel in Modern DressExistentialist BitePart Four: The Need for Theory, 1956-66Knowing the VoidT. S. Eliot as a MoralistA House of TheoryMass, Might and MythThe Darkness of Practical ReasonPart Five: Towards a Practical Mysticism, 1959-78The Sublime and the GoodExistentialists and MysticsSalvation by WordsArt is the Imitation of NaturePart Six: Can Literature Help Cure The Ills of Philosophy? 1959-61The Sublime and the Beautiful RevisitedAgainst DrynessPart Seven: Re-reading Plato, 1964-86The Idea of PerfectionOn “God” and “Good”The Sovereignty of Good Over Other ConceptsThe Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the ArtistsArt and Eros: A Dialogue about ArtAbove the Gods: A Dialogue about ReligionAcknowledgments and SourcesIndex